She made her way down the corridor to his study, taking her time to admire the view out of the windows as she went. Her muscles were aching from a few days of training, but she found that she rather liked the feeling of having put herself to work. She was not used to physical labor, but it had given her somewhere to work out the tension that had been building the longer she stayed in this place.
When she reached his study, she could tell he was already irritated at how long he had needed to wait for her. His hand was clasped around a glass of whiskey—early in the morning for such a thing, she noted to herself, but she thought better of commenting on it. His gaze landed on her with such sharpness that she could not deny it.
“Enjoying yer training?” he asked her as she made her way inside, taking the seat opposite him as though this was nothing more than a clan meeting.
“Aye, it’s been good to take some fresh air in the morning,” she replied casually, with a shrug. “Ewan is a fine teacher.”
“I’m sure every guard watching approves,” he remarked bitterly, his eyes shining with anger.
“I’m sure Callum would approve?—”
As soon as she mentioned his brother, he leaned forward suddenly, his eyes narrowing like he could not stand the very sight of her.
“I’m no’ my brother, Ailsa,” he warned her, dropping his voice. “And there are many things we disagree on. If he had listened to me about the MacCairns?—”
Her ears pricked, and she leaned forward at once. But he fell silent, as if he could sense that he had said too much.
“What about the MacCraiths?” she asked, her voice dropping, glancing around to the door to make sure that they were not being listened to. “Does it have anything to do with the attack the other day?” When he did not reply, she pressed on, “Tavish, what did ye do to them?”
“Ye think this is about me? I have to be the villain, right?” He said the words through gritted teeth.
“I can only assume it is about ye. Callum and Malric were getting on well before?—”
“Callum died in their lands!” he snarled back, and she rose to her feet, her brow furrowing.
“Ye blame them for it?” she retorted. “Ye ken as well as I do that there are many things in this world that could cause harm to a man like Callum, someone who?—”
“Ye speak of my brother as though ye knew him better than I did,” he replied as he stood up to face her, his gaze not breaking from hers for a moment.
It was the first time they had really addressed the issue that had gone unspoken between them. She had not been meant for him originally. Something nagged at the back of her mind,perhaps a warning, a warning that she should back off and keep her mouth shut before she said more than she could take back.
“I knew him well,” she replied. “He was my friend, and he—we were to be married. I ken that he would not have wandered into the MacCairn lands if there was any kind of animosity.”
“Ye ken nothing,” he hissed back at her, a black fury rising through him and casting her to silence all of a sudden. “And ye’re my wife now. Ye will listen to me.”
“Wife, we say?” she laughed bitterly. “One ye dinnae even talk to? A wife ye willnae even touch?” she replied, her voice cracking slightly.
She wished she could stop it, control it somehow, but she could not contain the pain of it any longer. The rejection seemed to reach somewhere deep down within her and spill over into the parts of herself she had once been so sure of.
He moved towards her, backing her towards the door, just as he had done on the parapet when he had come to her the night before their betrothal. And, just like that evening, she could feel the heat pulsing between them, the blood hot in the air.
“Is that what ye want, lass?” he murmured, his voice dropping precipitously. “To be touched?”
“That’s no’ what I?—”
“I heard ye well enough,” he assures her. Just like that, he had regained control of the conversation, taking command of it once more. “And if ye want me to treat ye as a wife, perhaps ye’d do well to start acting like one.”
“What on earth do ye?—”
“Ye have defied me at every turn,” he gritted out. “Ye have argued with me. Ye have done yer best to make a fool of me, and?—”
“Ye want to keep me in a cage I dinnae belong!” she told him, lifting her chin to look back at him with as much defiance as she could muster.
When he was this close to her, it felt like something just gave way inside of her, something that she could no longer battle, even with every tool that Ewan had taught her.
He planted one hand next to her, bracing himself against the wall. He was clearly able to see how she responded to him, the way that her body pulled towards him, despite herself. She wished she had it in her to fight him on this, but she didn’t, the weight of it bearing down on her no matter what battle she put up to resist it.
“No,” he agreed. “But ye do belong in my bed, lass. Ye understand that?”
